Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–560 of 994 posts

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#551

Post by newsbinator »

raz32dust wrote: post #130

Google flights is fantastic. Don't know if it is "the best-designed thing I've ever used", but it is on top of my mind as I just used it yesterday. Google doesn't get enough credit for the things that they did do well - including Search and Maps. Another is Macbooks - the pre-2015 ones at least. I haven't used the latest M1 ones, which I hear great things about. The Aluminum body, the flawless screen, magsafe, great…

One incredibly irritating thing about Google Flights is it ignores and overrides my currency settings every time. And often my language settings too. At least on Safari. No combination of being logged into Google and selecting the currency in the sidebar will result in the currency, rather than the local currency, being set for next visit. That means every single use of Google flights involves going to the sidebar to set currency, either first or more likely upon searching.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#552

Post by jonplackett »

raffraffraff wrote: post #501

Garmin Fenix 5s Sapphire: notifications from my phone with custom replies, 6 day battery life, buttons. No touch screen (operate it "blind" and in the wet), waterproof, scratchproof. You do need to pay extra for the sapphire screen. Swiss Army knife (they're sooo well made) Under armour underwear: no seams, last ages, extremely comfortable. Darn tough socks: extremely comfortable, last forever, never smell. Altra Lon…

Just seconding Under Armour underwear - especially the mesh version. So comfortable and never sweaty!

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#553

Post by t8e56vd4ih »

The VapCap fromm DynaVap for vaping weed. I use a Ti-Woodie Cocobolo for several years now. it's very robust, very simple, easy to maintain and clean and hands down the best vaporizer for small doses, absolutely efficient. I use about 0.02g for a session. That wouldn't be possible with almost any other vaporizer without. and you get everything out of the weed. also it's reasonably priced.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#555

Post by sleavey »

squarefoot wrote: post #340
Buttons840 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wish browsers had built in support for it. Imagine if by default most downloads were through BitTorrent, and your browser would then seed the file for 1.5x the download size and time.

Support in the browser would require the browser to stay on the whole time, along with the computer. Bittorrent clients are better run on small less power hungry boards (RPi, etc.) or on hardware that is meant to be running 24/7 anyway. For example, I run the Transmission daemon on my XigmaNAS home file server. The NAS is headless, but I can control the daemon through its remote GUI, so as soon as I click on a torren…

It doesn't require the browser to be always on, unless you want to download something (which is the same as a normal download). Do you mean it's better for the health of the swarm for a particular file? Otherwise I'm not sure I get your point.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#556

Post by grammarnazzzi »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #484
guidovranken wrote: post #27

BitTorrent is amazing. It just works. Anyone anywhere can create a torrent of their files, dump the magnet link somewhere, and everyone else can reliably retrieve it. It is self-reinforcing; the more people using a torrent, the better the robustness, redundancy and download speeds. You can often get better speeds from downloading something via torrent than from a web server. It's an open protocol that is relatively e…

But you also need to find the file first. And sites to search for files are unreliable, often get banned. I remember long before bit torrent there were protocols like napster, edonkey, imesh etc that included search function and were superior to bit torrent in this aspect. Unfortunately, bad design won.

> But you also need to find the file first

No. He's describing a distributor's options. You are describing a consumer's problem. Specifically pirate comsumers.

He doesn't need to find his own file; he needs to distribute it. Publishing is a separate issue. With napster, you only had one publishing option: napster.com. With torrents, you have many. As he said, "just dump the magnet link somewhere".

> Unfortunately, bad design won.

You're comparing apples and oranges. Napster and bittorent are different tools that solve different problems.

He's describing general issues involved in distributing something.

You're describing specific issues involved in stealing.

Saying "bad design won" is like saying hammers are a bad design compaired to hypodermic needles because you can't use a hammer to inject yourself with heroin.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#557

Post by quartesixte »

stephenfin wrote: post #222

I'm amazed no one has suggested Chromecast. It just works. Click a button on your phone or laptop and the video or song you were listening to or want to listen to suddenly appears on the TV. Even grandparents seem to get it. Maybe Apple TV is a similar experience but Chromecast is as good as it gets

Until you try to put it on an isolated VLAN for IOT. Then all hell breaks loose on trying to configure a firewall to correctly allow it to be discovered and cast to.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#558

Post by theaeolist »

poglet wrote: post #129
ISL wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. It's real tempting to answer, "indoor plumbing". It's really nice to flip a lever and get clean, safe water. It's real good not to need to stroll to the outhouse, too.

Mostly unrelated but I would like to be able to set the temperate and water pressure for my shower so I can just enter and press a single button. This would also be great for those showers where you can never get the water temperature or pressure right so you have to keep adjusting it. I would also like to run a bath by doing the same thing, and having the water stop when it's at the right level. Maybe there could be…

Everything about fancy hotel bathrooms is a usability nightmare. Sometimes there are two showers (hand-held and ceiling-mounted) operated by a single lever which sets temperature, pressure, and which of the two showers is active. The risk of giving yourself a too hot or too cold burst is significant. I usually cower into a corner while sloooooowly messing with that lever.

For an extra bonus: You usually have three identical looking small bottles with 'shampoo', 'conditioner', and 'shower gel' only distinguished by a tiny label, something like black-on-brown or yellow-on-white. Good luck if you are wearing glasses.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#559

Post by timonoko »

I like the wick-based kerosene stove the Chinese have recently invented. Pressure-based kerosene stoves can be really difficult with some old fuel you got from rusty barrel in Eskimo village. And they are dangerous too.

Wick-based works like a lamp, but with 8 wick. Very clever burning chamber makes it burn with blue flame. Probably works equally well with any kind of oil, example diesel.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best-designed things you've ever used?

#560

Post by astrange »

deckard1 wrote: post #475
akg_67 wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminded me of my experience at a Japanese Onsen (hot spring) last week. While entering the Onsen, the sliding door is automated and slides to open on it’s own. While exiting, the automated sliding doesn’t work. It has handles with no indication of pull or push or slide. The design of handles suggest most probably pull. I kept trying to pull/push with no movement. Finally, realized I am supposed to use those handl…

That design is everywhere in Japan, and can be quite embarrassing for tourists. First time I went to Japan I walked up to my hotel late at night. I went to the door. There was no handle or obvious way to open it. I stood there like an idiot for a minute or two. I walked back out to the street to make sure I'm at the right building. I walked back to the door and finally got it. The trick... you have to wave your hand…

They might want to prevent false activations since the doors tend to play annoying melodies when you go through them.
Post reply on HN